Unfinished business

A VISIT TO the Guangzhou motor show recently threw up an important question: does China's accelerated development point to the future of automotive globally or merely its own?

- NICK GIBBS

China is leading on battery tech but its gung-ho, bitterly fought and highly cash-intensive battle to appeal to local customers in other areas is widening the gulf to Europe's car industry.

Many of the new models at the show were massive. For example, the new IM LS9, a mid-market, family-oriented, plugin hybrid SUV, was almost 5.3m long. Chinese cars have always skewed slightly larger, but the gap is growing.

The show also laid bare the scale of the race to be first to offer full autonomy. My drive of the current Xpeng P7+ liftback using its supervised 'guided pilot' feature demonstrated how near that might be.